


Swim Lessons

by Zoeleo



Series: Rara Avis [8]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU
Genre: (Referenced) - Freeform, Bodyguard, Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Homophobia, Or Bruce adopts Jason but doesn't make him Robin, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 22:38:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12118719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoeleo/pseuds/Zoeleo
Summary: After discovering Jason can't swim on the fishing trip, Riley comes over to the manor and spends his afternoons teaching Jason how to swim. Meanwhile Jason spendshisafternoons plotting out how to give his new bodyguard a heart attack. Not even Bruce Wayne can pay Riley enough for this shit.





	Swim Lessons

**Author's Note:**

> Just something short and sweet. Well, sort of. Ended up with way more angst than I was intending - but still lighthearted! (No worries here!) A chance for more introspection on Riley's character. Enjoy! Not edited/beta-ed, if you see an error, don't be afraid to point it out. <3

“Riley! Riley, I’m ready!”

Riley blindly reaches into the bucket of diving rings next to his deck chair and flings one into the deep end. There’s a splash. He turns the page. There’s the second smaller splash as the boy resurfaces and paddles his way back to the edge of the pool.

“I got it! Gimme another!”

Riley repeats the action and takes a sip of pink tart lemonade. It’s only been three weeks and Jason’s already mastered the basics: floating, treading water, freestyle, and backstroke. After a few warm up-laps together, Riley spends the rest of the time pool-side reading while Jason wears himself out playing. The kid reminds him of the otters at the aquarium, jettisoning themselves back and forth through the water, twisting and flipping playfully. 

“Hey Riley! Check this out! Look!”

Riley doesn’t look up. He really doesn’t need to see the kid laughing at his own fart bubbles escaping out from under the edges of his swim trunks again. Or catching another face-full of salinized water. He _deeply_ regrets showing Jason how to use his hands to aim and shoot spurts of water. Besides, Nikandros just found out about Damen’s whipping at Laurent’s hands and Riley is pretty sure he’s about to rain some righteous Akielon fury down on the prince’s skinny smug ass and he _needs_ to know what happens next. He turns the page. And the next one. And realizes it’s been a suspiciously long time since he heard a splash.

__

His eyes flick up from the neat lines of printed words. 

__

_“Fuck!”_

__

The book skitters, face down and abandoned on the damp concrete that rings the pool. Tendrils of dark hair floating out in a morbid halo and sun-pinked shoulders are all he registers before diving in. His body forms a neat streamlined arch, leaving barely a splash when he hits the water. He surfaces less than a foot from his charge and rolls the boy onto his back. He leans Jason against his chest, keeping his face above the water and kicks them frantically back to the pool’s edge. It takes a little maneuvering but Jason is light enough that he has him out of the water and spread out with ease. 

__

“Kid, kid! Are you okay? _Jason!_ ”

__

CPR. CPR. He’s trained in this. He’s done it before. Oh Jesus Christ, never on anyone this small though. Oh god, if the kid is—No, he can’t think about that right now. He tilts the boy’s head back, lifting his chin and opening his airway. He puts his ear to the boy’s mouth to listen and feel for breathing then—

__

Flings himself backwards with an undignified shriek. When his brain catches up to his body he shoots a venomous glare at the cackling goblin-child with all the dignity he can muster while trying to wipe saliva out of his ear canal.

__

“You little shit! You fu—you scared the _shit_ out of me kid! Don’t do that! I thought you were dead. _Jesus._ ”

__

He comforts himself by pressing a palm against his jack-hammering heart. Jason, like the spawn-of-Satan that he is, just curls up on his side so he can laugh his way into the seventh circle of hell more comfortably. Riley shuffles forward and prods Jason in the shoulder _hard_ to get his attention. Jason sticks his tongue out at him.

__

“Seriously kid, you don’t—you don’t fu—fudgin’ do that to someone. What were you— _Why_ would you do that?”

__

“I figured out how to do a flip off the diving board. I wanted to show you but you wouldn’t even look up. Had your nose shoved in that book,” Jason pouts. “You’re not a very good body guard. You really should pay better attention. I could have _died,_ ” he drawls out the last word dramatically. 

__

Riley closes his eyes then immediately snaps them open, remembering this whole thing transpired because he took his eyes off his charge for less than five minutes. He’s angry and unsettled. He wants to snap at Jason again because dying isn’t _funny,_ it’s not something to be joked about. He’s lost too many friends; some to missions, more to a bottle of jack and a .44 mag when the memories followed them home – _stopping by the school they helped build the month before, only to find rubble and dust-covered corpses (too small, too small) in its place_ – to find that brand of humor anything but off-putting.

__

He’s not even mad at the kid. He’s mad at himself. Jason is right, if he had actually drowned, it would have been all Riley’s fault. He’s supposed to keep the kid safe, not just from kidnappers and overzealous paparazzi, but in general. He runs a hand through his hair and lets out a shaky sigh. To his surprise Jason sits up and scoots closer, lays a hesitant hand on his forearm.

__

“Are you okay?” The question is as small and fragile as the touch.

__

Riley shoots him a tremulous smile, “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m sorry – you’re right, I should have been paying attention. Just, please promise me to never do that again?” A thought strikes him. “And not to anyone else either. Alfred or your brother. God, especially not to your dad.”

__

Riley isn’t quite sure what to make of Bruce Wayne. In private, the man is nothing like what he’s been lead to believe from the media. While he can be a little absent-minded at times, Riley swears it’s because his thoughts are always somewhere else rather than being completely lacking. Sometimes he’ll walk into the kitchen with an expression far too intense for anyone retrieving a bottle of coconut water. Once or twice he’s caught Riley looking and immediately wiped everything from his face with a blinding blank grin. To be honest, he scares Riley a little. Even more so because Riley can’t quite pick up on _why_. 

__

He’s a devoted dad to Jason though, and that’s all that really matters. Despite his lunatic schedule, Mr. Wayne tries to make the time he spends with Jason count. Watching them interact makes Riley’s chest ache, conjuring memories of going fishing with his dad, tilling up the garden, and drinking sweating glasses of sweet tea on the porch. Memories of when things were still good between them, before that disastrous homecoming game senior year of high school when he got caught making out under the bleachers with the captain of the football team.

__

Mr. Wayne has a lot of smiles: flirtatious grins, little smirks, big toothy red-carpet beamers… But there’s one that is special. One that Riley only ever sees come out when Bruce is with Jason. Riley has no doubt that Mr. Wayne would go to the ends of the earth for his son, and he doesn’t want to contemplate what it would do to the man if he ever lost him. Then again, that’s why they hired him. To make sure that doesn’t happen. 

__

Jason nods solemnly. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

__

“You don't need to apologize. Like I said, it was my fault,” Riley shakes his head and messes with Jason’s wet mop. 

__

Jason brays and rocks back on his heels, soggy strands falling over his face. He pushes the tangle of wet hair out of his eyes so he can level Riley with a murderous glower. 

__

“So, you said you did a flip off the diving board? Show me? I promise I’ll watch this time,” Riley offers.

__

The glare disappears in a flash, replaced with a cocky crooked grin. 

__

“You better!” Jason shouts and is dashing to the far edge of the pool before Riley can shout, “Walk, don’t run!” after him.

__


End file.
